What happened

Dubbed "Operation Undercut," the campaign aimed to sow distrust among European nations and involved the use of AI-generated voices to create fake news videos that sought to portray Ukrainian leaders as corrupt and suggesting that advanced military equipment, like US-manufactured Abrams tanks, would be ineffective in the conflict. 

US-based start-up ElevenLabs' AI voice generation technology was used to produce the voiceovers in multiple languages, including English, French, German, and Polish, according to cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Other AI voice products may also have been used, the company reports.

Why it happened

By using AI-generated voices that sound native and devoid of foreign accents, the campaign sought to enhance the credibility of its misleading content - a tactic that allowed Russian operatives to disseminate their messages quickly and effectively across multiple European languages.